Given their visual allure, its an obvious jump for objects of design to make their way to the big screen. But seeing a piece of architecture or industrial design on film can be more than just a different view. These five films about design and designers dig into the stories of the making of places and products, but also the peopleand controversiesbehind them.Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design StoryThis documentary details the widespread impact of architect Eliot Noyes on 20th-century corporate America. A modernist architect and industrial designer, Noyes is best known for his long tenure as a consultant design director for IBM. In addition to designing the companys famously smooth Selectric typewriter, Noyes essentially designed IBMs corporate identity, integrating design throughout its products, management, and marketing. The film explores his unique perspective, and also the ways his thinking has become infused in the form and function of modern corporations around the world.Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott BrownStardust profiles the partnership and marriage of two pioneers of postmodern architecture. Lauded as much for their influential designs as their academic imprint, Venturi and Scott Brown carved unique careers in architecture, and the nature of their partnership was seen through a skewed lens for decades. The film is a professional biography of their designs, but also focuses on the rife sexism in the architecture industry and the often imbalanced credit the pairs work would receivesuch as when Venturi was named alone as the 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate. Directed by Venturi and Scott Browns son, Stardust exposes the fallacy of seeing Scott Brown as just the wife and not the equal partner.E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the SeaA dramatized retelling of the conflict surrounding one of the worlds most renowned early Modernist homes, and the controversy that has shrouded its reputation. Designed in 1929 by the Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray, E.1027 was a seaside villa on the French Riviera that she intended to be a place of respite for herself and her lover, architect Jean Badovici. The film centers around the homes controversial interior murals, which were later added by the famed architect Le Corbusier after Gray and Badovici separated. The murals brought the house to the attention of the world but enraged Gray, who saw the famous architect usurping her authorship of the home. Referred to as a docufiction by directors Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub, the film is a mix of archival footage and scenes recreated with actors. Fittingly, most of the film was shot inside the home itselfwhich has fortunately been preserved.The BrutalistA historical drama set in post-war Philadelphia, this film follows the story of an architect and Holocaust survivor eking out a living as an immigrant laborer. Hes been forced by circumstance to abandon his innovative and successful career in architecture, until a wealthy industrialist hires him to design an ambitious community center. Personalities and cultures clash. Drug addictions ensue. Kindness is countered with betrayal. Design nerds will surely swoon over scenes of the community centers design and construction, as well as vivid moments inside a marble quarry in Carrara, Italy. Newly released in the U.S., the film has already garnered several awards nominations and is expected to be an Oscar contender for best film of the year.MegalopolisThis science fiction epic from writer/director Francis Ford Coppola takes an extravagant stab at the trope of the visionary architect pursuing Utopia. Set in an alternate and class-riven 21st-century New York known as New Rome, the story follows a starchitect who proposes a utopian plan for a new city, only to be opposed by the citys corrupt mayor. (The architect also has the secret ability to stop time, but thats another matter.) The film, which Coppola had been trying to make since the early 1980s and eventually self-financed for more than $120 million, has been critically panned and bombed at the box office. But sometimes even bad films are good. Its a flamboyant, absurd, star-studded spectacle that fully embraces the clearly fictional concept of an architect whos actually able to reinvent the world. As the films protagonist says in the trailer, My plan is a city that people can dream about. Dream on!